dexterdent

If you don't like the commentary on the commentary, don't read the thread. If you don't like the free live comments on bikehub (douchebags and all), don't open it. This is not sound financial advice, do whatever you want. More seriously, it seems like the team don't have access to great live info and that seems to be the cause of many of the "issues".

I think CTCT2024 supposedly included the permanent racing chip thingy, CTCT2025 has it as an optional extra? Not that it made a difference to me, entry secured Well worth the money in my opinion.

For what it's worth, I've gone the Silca route and used an ultrasonic cleaner for the first clean with a citrus degreaser and following up with methylated spirits (the ultrasonic is definitely not required IMO). Subsequent top-ups have been pretty low effort. Getting reusable quick-links is key though - I got the YBN ones from Rapide. I used the Silca sous-vide bag in a pot on the stove to melt the wax and that works well. I haven't taken an application past 250km or out in the rain yet, but up to there it has felt very smooth and quiet. I bought a couple of extra chains and will be doing three at a time. I think for now I am sold on it - not much more effort than properly cleaning / drip waxing the chains, and some supposedly significant benefits in longevity.

Sounds like an epic result finishing in the top 2.5% of a huge race, beating a lot of people with intimidating symbols on their back, and with a position that in some other years would have been a 2h55 with the same effort. Well done, and see you next year trying to break the arbitrary 3hr barrier that somehow still means a lot

To get a sub-3, either be VERY fit, or get a great seeding (1A or better, not *that* hard if you do the PPA or 99er) and hope the weather plays along (some years there are 1000+ sub-3s and others <500). I missed out this year by ~5m, but finished top20 in 1B and tried to spend some time (not a lot) in the wind to get the group average speed up a bit. I lost a full minute on the Chappies descent due to the wind, and there wasn't much group cohesion from there onwards. I keep telling myself I'm happy with the result, and I am, but it feels like unfinished business. There were three major changes I made to go from a 3h30-3h45 rider to where I am now: Firstly, upped my training from 5 hours per week to 7-8 hours - zwift helped a lot. Secondly, get nutrition right with carbs while training and protein/carbs afterwards. Thirdly, I lost about 8kg's and now I like climbs.

Have had two TICKRs die on me and just gave up on the brand. Also never completely confident in the results, either small gaps/drops, or weird flat lines. The warranty seems to work well though. Two of my friends have had similar experiences. I would strongly recommend anything else.

Show them your shaved legs?

Sitting in the Oranjezicht at the moment listening to the wind setting off car alarms (again). It was so strong last night that it was lifting heavy curtains through a keyhole in a door. Do you people in the South have any air left?

Yes! From the variety of tracking numbers I received (seriously, there were at least three) I managed to figure out it was delivered to the Post Office in the CT CBD (I guessed that was the case as I had not received the typical courier request for customs payment). I waited a couple of days (phoning there goes unanswered) and then showed up with all my tracking numbers. They were very helpful and I managed to get my package and pay the customs. Merlin did indicate that this was them trying a new service provider and that they will default to express options from now on. I'll try them again for things I can't get locally.

For what it's worth - I am making my own energy drink using a recipe suggested by someone else on the forum (https://runographer.com/2015/12/homemade-sports-drink-for-the-ultimate-diy-running-nutrition/). It doesn't have optimal fructose:glucose ratio because it was done in 2015 before they figured that out (and I'm not trying to get 120g/hour anyway), but seems to work fine for me with a tiny bit of Oros for taste. And it comes in at like 1/5 the price. Also, the Karoo Hammerhead is the best gps cycling computer don't believe the garmin fanboys (kidding, get whatever is cheaper, they are all mostly the same). Just don't get a Wahoo HRM strap...

I used CRC/Wiggle quite a few times for things I could not get locally so I was pretty sad when they stopped taking our orders as it was always a smooth and fast delivery process, often under a week. Tried Merlin this time and 3 weeks later I think my package might be at a post office somewhere, so who knows if it still exists.

I think this has good intentions and cyclists on the road need to take some responsibility for our own safety. So it is good to get called out when we do something wrong. However, after seeing the comments on the video of that person who got mowed down by a drunk driver around the spot where the cameraman was taking pictures, I feel like a public post like this (somehow) gives justification to the mob who see cyclists as less than human, and makes me feel just slightly less safe next time I will be out on the road. My experience is that the bulk of road users are rational, safe people (count the number of cars that pass safely and count the number that don't) and the less ammo we give the small amount of crazies, the better. That includes safe, predictable behaviour from cyclists of course.

Also using PSN due to the price and taste, much cheaper and still tastes better than most of the others I tried (as long as you stick with the chocolate ones, the other flavours are just ok to me). It makes it much easier to get my total protein for the day up without pushing up the calories too much. I even mix it with milk for my lunch cheerios I'm not that big into supplements and prefer just eating healthy and varied, but getting some extra protein in after cycling sessions on zwift definitely improves recovery for me.

2.12 annoyed me so much that I exercised a lot to get a good seeding just to avoid the muppets blasting Kurt Darren up Chappies. So thanks I guess.

Doesn't help that we all keep calling it the Argus - title sponsor doesn't seem to be worth much then

I fear John is correct, one superhuman guy with a pure focus on the tour and a great team will be VERY hard to beat. But jeez, with that team UAE will certainly not make it boring.

It boggles the mind that this is even possible in a City that wants to remain a tourism hotspot - it's not THAT big an area, and there are not THAT many muggers. Maybe we should get that angry guy from the other thread to come sort it out for us?

Just ordered most of those ingredients and will try it out - do you use anything for flavour? Also it might be good to get some potassium and magnesium in there, will see if there is an easy way.

Cool, I've put my results here https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews

I have gone through two major upgrades to my road biking experience, and I felt the need to check if they made any real-life difference. I figured it might be useful to share. Noting that while I tried to go about this with some level of science, there are obviously lots of faults in the methodology. Equipment Old: Giant Defy Endurance road bike with standard wheels Aero bike: SRT Aero 1.19 with Bontrager Affinity TLR wheels. It's not the most aero bike out there, but at least this bike has integrated cabling Aero wheels: SRT as above but with Lun Routte SE wheels (45/55mm) Methodology Take average power meter readings from all rides on a flattish Strava segment as well as log the time for the segment. This includes data over a period of about 3 years and conditions that vary significantly - wind, rain, drafting, smaller gear changes (like helmet / jersey), rider weight fluctuations, potentially some improvement in posture, etc. Throw out any clear outliers like punctures or other stops. The segment I chose is https://www.strava.com/segments/9082414 - it's one of the flatter ones I ride often enough to have a good amount of data. Run a trendline through the data in Excel to see if there remains a meaningful difference nonetheless. Try and quantify this difference for the two major upgrades at different power points. I stuck with exponential trendlines as that is closer to how it should increase with speed and therefore power (in a perfect world). Results The scatter plot is below: What is this telling me? 1. There is significant variation at the same power point, even with the same gear (you can see this in the relatively low R-squared values). This points to the fact that obviously it's not just the gear that determines the speed. Knowing the conditions much better in the Aero Wheel dataset (because they are recent), I believe the most significant contributor by far is wind. 2. Following this point, I saw some quite significant variations at the same power point on the same day, where you would have expected wind conditions to remain very similar. I chalk this down to the inherent gustiness that happens next to the mountain, you can be lucky or unlucky over the 4/5 min. 3. The Aero bike advantage is significant enough that it matters. Weird that the trendlines get closer together at higher power, but I am sure that's just a limitation of the amount of data. 4. The aero wheels are a much bigger advantage, and diverge a bit more like you would expect. Just because I have been excited to test the wheels a bit more, I have probably gone out on more windy days than I would normally have which means the difference is potentially understated What do my trendlines predict at different average power? Watts Old Aero bike Lun 100 06:09:39 06:00:41 05:50:14 150 05:43:06 05:34:57 05:21:13 200 05:18:28 05:11:04 04:54:36 250 04:55:36 04:48:53 04:30:11 300 04:34:23 04:28:16 04:07:48 325 04:24:21 04:18:32 03:57:19 350 04:14:41 04:09:08 03:47:16 At 300W I am already seeing a potential 26 second gain over a ~4min run - that is a crazy improvement! I have done 325W for this segment before (on the old wheels), and it looks like just the wheel upgrade would have gotten me below 4 mins on that day. Limitations There are lots of issues with this analysis, as I did not plan on doing this when I started "collecting" data: Drafting - some of these data points will include drafting, but I estimate that to be less than 5 of the total, and definitely none in the Aero Wheels set. Wind - Hoping that with enough data points this starts canceling out, but it has such a large effect that we won't really know without tracking it, and tracking it is very hard due to the gustiness next to the mountain. Rain - this also makes a bigger different than you think, even just a wet road makes a difference as some of your energy goes into throwing those drops into the air. Weight fluctuations - While I tried to look for a flattish route, there is still a small amount of elevation change. My weight has fluctuated between 82 and 89 kg for most of these data points. The newer data is around 85 kg. Other gains - Over the time period I got a better helmet, better jersey, moved to tubeless GP5000 from tubed GP4000, and have probably improved my position a little bit. Of these the position should be the most impactful, but I tried keeping it pretty standard for the newer data (riding in the drops). Power plot - it does make a difference how smooth your power output is. It seemed like smoother power output gave me faster results. Statistical analysis - there is some more statistical analysis I could do, but I've gotten enough out of this already so will stop here. Conclusion (TL:DR) Upgrades do make a measurable difference to a normal bike rider (it's not about the bike, but it is a little). You can buy speed! Upgrading wheels makes a much bigger difference than upgrading the rest of your bike. I can finally justify buying that power meter some years ago Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

This is pretty cool, but without the ability to choose how much time I have available, I would not be able to use it. A function where we can select the timeslots we can ride and the training plans adjust to that would be beneficial.

I've also had lots of different issues with my TICKR, replaced one under warranty, but the other one randomly gives many of the things others have described. It does seem to help to wash the chest strap after every ride, but does not solve all problems. I'd say it's very hard to recommend the product really.

Yeah I think that was more UAE money talking than anything else, but if it gets them lots of people it will be great to have a racing alternative

Does anyone other than Zwift have nice racing? On Zwift you can find a race with 100 people in your cat every hour and that (at least for me) makes indoor cycling very far from boring.

Some new road bike wheels (Lun Routte SE) that I finally got to test out after having to wait for two weeks due to stupid covid: Unfortunately the wind was crazy jerky coming down next to the mountain so got a bit scared, but they felt pretty great most of the time. Not sure it would have been different with my old shallow wheels.